User talk:Motacilla/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello Motacilla! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking

or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! --Lysy^talk 01:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Firecrest

Hi, I think you should add some licensing info to your pictures at commons. Take a look at some other images, e.g. this one has a dual license which is denoted in its description with self2|GFDL|cc-by-sa-2.5 template. Here "self2" is a template for self made photos, "GDFL" is the first license and "cc-by-sa-2.5" is the second one. But of course you can choose the license that suits you best. The whole selection of available licenses is available at Commons:Copyright tags. Anyway, you should better always add a license to your pictures immediately, otherwise sooner or later there'll be someone deleting them. I've even had a case when someone tagged mi picture for deletion immediately, while I was still uploading it!

You're right that Firecrest is pl:zniczek but I have no idea how "Madeira Firecrest" would translate properly. --Lysy^talk 16:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Motorcycling Wikiproject

Welcome to the Motorcycling WikiProject. Hopefully you have a good time, start many new articles and can contribute lots to the existing ones as we need that. Cheers ww2censor 02:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

April 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, adding content without citing a reliable source, as you did to Norton Classic, is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources, please take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Norton Interpol 2, etc. ww2censor (talk) 04:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced motorcycle articles

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, adding content without citing a reliable source is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are familiar with Wikipedia:Citing sources, please take this opportunity to add references to the article. Thank you. Most of the new motorcycle article you have added have no sources and they need that, otherwise, as has already happened with the Hecker (motorcycle) article, they will likely be put up for deletion. Hopefully you can add sufficient extra text with verifiable sources. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 00:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to WikiProject Ships

Hello Motacilla, and welcome to WikiProject Ships! Please see the navigation sidebar on our main project page for information about our project guidelines, resources, and pending tasks. You can post any questions at the project talk page. Thank you for joining - we look forward to working with you! Maralia (talk) 22:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IP Address

Hi, caught your question to J.delanoy in RC, I don’t know anything about cloning, but to check your IP Address go here, Best wishes, --Badgernet ^Talk 14:01, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Motacilla.

Apparently, your IP address is a shared IP address, which means that your internet service provider periodically changes what IP address you have. (See our article about DHCP if you are interested in the technical details of this procedure.)

At some point in the past, someone else used that IP address (the one you have now) to vandalize Wikipedia, and then DHCP reassinged the IP address to you, and you received the message that was meant for the other person. This is a frankly annoying but unavoidable consequence of Wikipedia's technique of treating users who are not logged in as though their IP address was their username.

Since you didn't make the edit that was reverted, just don't worry about it. As long as no vandalism comes from someone in your house nothing will happen. I apologize for the inconvenience and worry. Again, if you are not vandalizing, you have nothing to fear, no matter what. Cheers! J.delanoy ^gabs _adds 00:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to check your ip address... click the little connected to the internet icon (two little monitors which blink green when info uploads or downloads) in the bottom right of your screen then view the details tab where it will tell you the ip number. in a world where infesting or monitoring computers is the interesting thing a rotating ip is just as essential as your service provider being able to identify who had what number. you may find yourself cross referenced like this occasionally but at least you cannot be remotely accessed two days in a row. its a pity that your computer does not also show the address which is sending stuff to your computer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.231.193 (talk) 22:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merger of Articles

Hello, I noticed that you contributed to the Austin & Pickersgill article, I am proposing that this is merged to the A&P Group article as part of the company's history and was wondering what you thought. Seeing as though it is now known as A&P rather than its full name I was thinking that the latter article should be kept, and the older one merged into it. Thanks, Xtrememachineuk (talk) 01:02, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice one! I didn't even know there was a separate article on A&P Group, or that A&P survived after the end of British Shipbuilders Corporation. Thank you for bringing things together. Motacilla (talk) 22:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Motorcycling

“I ride Norton motorcycles. I would ride my BSA, Matchless and MZ machines as well, if only I could make them work! Yes, I do worry that riding old motorcycles ruins my carbon footprint.”

Darn! I ride vintage BMW motorcycles. Now you make me feel guilty about my adversely affecting on the carbon footprint! Oh well, I will continue to ride BMWs built from 1952 through 1969. I cannot stop myself :( — By the way, all my old BMWs work fine. Motorrad-67 (talk) 01:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tee hee! Thanks for getting in touch. I've owned three 1980's BMW R80RT's, spent a couple of years riding a 1978 R80/7, had a holiday riding an R90S in Colorado, Utah and Arizona and once had a fun afternoon in Austria riding an old R69. I looked at your BMW photo's on your userpage: they look pretty smart. I think about the environment because two of my Nortons have Wankel engines, which burn their oil like a two stroke. Norton Wankel emissions are so dirty that even in the 1980's they were not allowed to be imported into the USA! Mazda is testing a hydrogen-fuelled version of its RX-8 car. If it succeeds, maybe the Wankel could turn from one of the dirtiest engines to one of the cleanest. Here's hoping! Motacilla (talk) 23:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ROD 2-8-0 locomotives

Thank you for your contributions to this article (and 'facelifting' mine!). Between us, we've greatly improved this Wikipedia article in the last day or so! RuthAS (talk) 23:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the compliment! I've been reviewing and trying to improve the articles about British steam locomotives that gave significant wartime service in the Middle East and especially Palestine: the LNWR 17in Coal Engine, LSWR 395 class, ROD 2-8-0 and LMS Stanier Class 8F. I've made corresponding improvements to the article in German about Palestine Railways. The article needs to be translated into English, but it's too long a job for me to tackle at the moment. Happy New Year! Motacilla (talk) 00:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've found that the Restoration and Archiving Trust has a photo of an ROD 2-8-0 still in existence in Iraq in 1967.[1] It was in storage at the railway works near Baghdad awaiting disposal. I've added a link to the photo from the ROD 2-8-0 article.Motacilla (talk) 02:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies

I apologize about my very belated response to your original message. I truthfully did not notice it. As for the edit summary, you were correct that I could have communicated my actions better. Severely overlinked probably wasn't very clear, I should have said removing links or something similar. Please accept my apologies on both counts. Regards, Dabomb87 (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did you miss this? Dabomb87 (talk) 00:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I did not remove the link to "turnpike"; that was Ohconfucius. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tackley

Well done on your re-write! I started this article but moved from the village before I really got my teeth into it. Medcroft (talk) 18:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou for the compliment! I'm slowly working my way around articles on villages and towns in Oxfordshire: amending at least a dozen of them and creating about half a dozen more. The majority are on past and present railway lines in the county, as that's one of my other interests.

I've also been amending articles about some of the British and US steam locomotives to include their service in Palestine and Iraq: LNWR 17in Coal Engine, LSWR 395 class, ROD 2-8-0, LMS Stanier Class 8F, USATC S100 Class, USATC S200 Class, etc. I created the article on the Iraqi State Railways PC class 4-6-2 streamlined locomotives. So far it is incomplete as I have yet to find out when the three withdrawn members of class were scrapped, find out how and where the fourth member of the class was lost en route (presumably due to enemy action), or find a non-copyright photo of any of the four members of the class.

A Wikipedian's work is never done! Motacilla (talk) 11:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

British Tanker Co Ltd

Are you planning to create this article? If so, I'd suggest that British Tanker Company fits better with the naming style for companies. Mjroots (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice: I've now amended all references accordingly. I've no plans to create the article British Tanker Company but I have now created articles for two of its vessels: SS British Consul and MV British Prudence.

A couple of sources you may wish to use to expand those articles. Plimsoll Ship Data has PDF copies of Lloyds Register entries from 1930-45. Miramar Ship Index has details of thousands of ships. You will need to use {{cite Miramar}} to reference info from there though. Mjroots (talk) 17:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

South Leigh

Just wanted to say what a good job you've done at expanding the South Leigh article.

Rsloch (talk) 09:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Oxford Canal Route Map

Hi. I had to chop your text down a bit. With these collapsing templates, one is quite limited to the length of the text you can use. It drove me almost mad when I made it - and I almost gave up and turned it into a fixed open style! IIRC the longest text that works is the line Sharing with River Cherwell for 1 mile (I adjusted that text to show me the working limit) - any text longer than that (in actual length, not character count as it's not a fixed pitch font) will cause the three sections not to line up any more, as opening up the section with the long text pushes the sections to the left - but not the fixed (always showing) parts. I think it's a known bug in the BS5collapible routines. The diff shows which 2 items I had to trim. If you really want to keep "site of" in the first one, then you would have to trim "Buckinghamshire" to "Bucks." as I did in the second edit. It's up to you. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 18:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou: I appreciate what sorts of difficulty you've dealt with. I struggled to create relatively simple route diagrams for the Wycombe Railway and Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway, and then almost over-reached myself when I created one for the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway!

On the Oxford Canal diagram I've reinstated "site of" and accordingly abbreviated "Buckinghamshire" to "Bucks", as I think it's only fair to the reader to make clear which former bridges are no longer there. The representations of Castle Mill Stream and Sheepwash Channel in Oxford are incomplete, but there's scant space to improve them. Inclusion of the River Thames from Duke's Cut to just below Sheepwash Channel is interesting but makes the whole diagram wider, and it's incomplete as it lacks the names of the Thames locks that it shows. Do you reckon that removing the Thames and improving the representation of the connecting channels would make things more directly relevant - or more confusing? Motacilla (talk) 00:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a fair edit to me. It's always a problem with the width. This template is a BS5, one can go to a BS7 and gain some extra columns, but then it really starts to encroach on the article text - see Template:TandM Canal Route Map, I did that on a BS7 (started with a BS9 - that was wide), and it's quite wide, but there was no ways of getting all those big lakes into the scheme. There has been some other input on the Oxford - a few people have fiddled with the bottom (I don't remember that green bit with the Wharves). The only bit I don't really like is where the Thames comes in (opposite the A40 label) which one almost misses as a navigation coming in from the left - but tricky to change, I wanted to keep the lock and railway bridge (Wolvercote Junction, to Duke's Cut) in a straight line as the lock is virtually under the bridge (that was shown to be by someone else as I originally missed out the lock!), and the uJUNCrd was the more correct junction (closest to reality) when the Duke's Cut meats the Thames - an option would be to make it more schematic and have a uJUNCld where the uSTRrg is above it, and then extend a wandering Thames a bit more Northwards before leaving the map. Feel free to put in the Thames Locks names (I probably was not sure of them - I've only done the section Bow Locks [what a great name to say fast...] to R.Wey in a boat), one would have to add some uSTR to the canal to give you some blank lines for labels.

I'm the one who "fiddled with the bottom" adding the former wharves south of Hythe Bridge Street! No offence taken. The non-navigable stream south of Hythe Bridge is Castle Mill Stream, but the upper section of Castle Mill Stream from the Thames to Isis Lock is missing. The link under the railway to the Thames is Sheepwash Channel, and it should have two railway bridges across it (see Buckinghamshire Railway or Varsity Line) plus a footbridge. Sheepwash Channel's junction with the main Thames should be four-way, as Bulstake Stream joins opposite it.

These streams are all part of the Thames. Rather than portray inaccurately a set of streams that are not even part of the Oxford Canal, I am tempted by the option of deleting them and the length of Thames from Wolvercote to Osney and showing instead two simple junctions: one between Duke's Cut and the Thames, and the other linking Isis Lock with Castle Mill Stream and Sheepwash Channel. It may seem draconian, but it would be simpler - and possibly narrower! What do you reckon? Motacilla (talk) 17:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should have looked at the history to see who did the fiddling... :-) I've only been to Oxford by car - I've only boated from Aynho northwards, so all the various water bits are not so well known to me. I used a combination of Google Earth plus Streetmap (at 1:25000 OS map scale) plus "Canalplan AC" to make them in the first place, that's fine for the navigable sections, but the smaller streams are sometimes hard to see/find.

I don't mind if you want to have a chop of the Thames bits. It is after all a template map of the Oxford Canal - which will have some connections to it. How detailed the connections are is not so important - they are nice to see if they can be reasonably depicted. As I said to get all the connections in often means a wider template. Feel free to have a go and see how it turns out. As I said I wasn't 100% happy with the map - I think the main problem is that it's possibly too long (it is a very long canal!), which is why I plumped for the "Collapsibles" type template and divided (logically) it into three well known sections. When I did the others that have rivers - I went for a fixed style which makes life a little easier! (and wider on two of them - BS7 Template:Lee Navigation Route Map and Template:TandM Canal Route Map, only dropping back to BS5 on Template:Stort Navigation Route Map, which hasn't too many side streams). On the other hand - have a look at User:Ronhjones/Sandbox2, I've changed all the row templates to BS7 and added the extra two columns at the start of each row - Would that be better? Would those extra columns give you enough room for a better map? I'll leave it with you. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 19:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go at seeing how much I can do within the BS5 format. I've amended the layout of the connecting streams and removed the "superfluous" parts of the Thames. Duke's Cut still lacks towpath bridge 232 between Duke's Junction and the railway bridge, and the A40 road bridge that was added in 1933 between the lock and Wolvercote Mill Stream. I guess the alternatives are either to expand everything to BS7 or to turn Duke's Cut vertical, which would make it more schematic but fit in the two missing bridges.

Duke's Cut connects with the Thames via a navigable section of Wolvercote Mill Stream. Isis Lock connects with Sheepwash Channel across a navigable junction of Castle Mill Stream, but I've left out the name of Castle Mill Stream to avoid clutter. I hope the result looks okay, but if you reckon the diagram needs any more improvements please feel welcome. Motacilla (talk) 21:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's OK. It still does it's main function as the Oxford Canal map, anything else is just minor icing on the cake. Let's leave it like that and see how it goes. There's always someone else who will come along and have a fiddle :-) Ronhjones ^(Talk) 19:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway halts

Thanks for your message, your changes are most welcome. Thanks also for the tip re a possible source of images. With regard to Wainhill Crossing, I hesitated before creating this article as Butt gives its "official" name as "Wainhill Halt", yet the photos I've seen of the station show a sign with "Wainhill Crossing". I suppose I should go with the latter? On another subject, I was wondering if it would be helpful to create a template for disused Oxfordshire stations, much like that which exists for Bucks and Northants? Lamberhurst (talk) 07:23, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adding blank parameters

Please don't make edits articles soley to add blank parameters to infoboxes. It serves no purpose other than filling up peoples watchlists unnecessarily. Feel free to add them if you are making other worthwhile edits to the article at the same time though. Jeni ^(talk)_(Jenuk1985) 23:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adding blank parameters to infoboxes serves the good purpose of helping to complete those boxes ready for adding data in future. Blank parameters form a checklist to help an editor to ensure that they've added every category of data that they intended to. If there is a rule that says otherwise please draw my attention to it; if there isn't, please don't make an issue as if there were. You are complaining about edits that are minor, legitimate and harmless. I've improved the articles on a couple of Oxfordshire villages and am now going to bed. Motacilla (talk) 23:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I m with you on this. There are people who take out unused fields which is really annoying as less experienced users then don't realize what to add. As for cluttering watchlists - just call yourself a bot! Regards Motmit (talk) 19:38, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Completed lines

I was wondering if you had the time to look over the now complete Kingham to Cheltenham section of the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway and the Brill part of the Bicester cut-off? They could do with your expert eye. Think of it as punishment for removing my 'insubstantial "politics" paragraph' on the Spelsbury page.

Dear Rsloch: you forgot to sign your message! Thankyou for the good news about these two lines. I will look at the articles when I can, but at present my Mum is in hospital which has given me a family crisis to deal with. I have been lent a copy of the August 1955 edition of The Railway Magazine. It has an article about the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway, including dates of opening each section of line and some of the stations that were added later. I hope to add this source as a reference where appropriate, plus any new material that it may provide. Motacilla (talk) 10:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to hear about your Mother. I hope she gets better soon.

Rsloch (talk) 13:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a really good go at Kingham railway station, some of the stuff that I've put in there can be used to improve the other station articles.

There are at least three published works dedicated to the line, with a fourth pending:

Russell (1977) there is a copy in our model railway club's library. Oh sorry there isn't, it's next to me. Same size pages as, but rather thinner than, the next two.
Hemmings, Karau & Turner (2004, 3 vols) I have vols 1 & 2 only. This is the heaviest of the four works.
Jenkins, Brown & Parkhouse (2005) I don't have.
Mitchell & Smith (scheduled for Oct 2009, according to Middleton Press)

I have a complete set of The Railway Magazine from January 1939 to date (seventy years unbroken run), also most issues from the 1929-1938 period. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have now dug out that RM, and it looks as if chunks of the text have been lifted direct from MacDermot. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Redrose64, you have been busy! I didn't even know Kingham had an MPD. I've taken the liberty of adding distance converters, and in the infobox I have changed "Chipping Norton Branch" and "Bourton-on-the-Water Branch" to "Railway" in each case. The former is for the benefit of readers who may be less sure of Imperial distances; the latter I suggest achieves equal clarity in slightly fewer bytes. Some of the material you have added to the "History" section of the Kingham railway station article refers to the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway more generally. May I suggest considering whether to transfer some of the text to the latter article?

While we are on the subject of lines through Kingham, have you looked at the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway and Oxford-Worcester-Wolverhampton Line articles? Some months ago I made a proposal to merge them, and I would welcome comments on the proposal from more contributors.

My Mum is still in hospital and is expected to be for some time. My contributions to articles and replies to messages will therefore continue to be intermittent and sometimes tardy. I will log onto Wikipedia as and when I can. Contributions to articles about railways in Oxfordshire seems to be progressing in a thoroughly good-natured, constructive, collegial manner, with each of us contributing from the different sources to which we have access. I'm enjoying this!

Best wishes Motacilla (talk) 22:52, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, some of the Kingham text might well be better off in the B&CDR article. Unfortunately, I have a habit of bringing in possibly too much ancillary information as background/framework - like Isaac Asimov, who when commissioned to write a book on the neutrino, didn't even mention the little blighters until something like three-quarters of the way through his book.

Re The Railway Magazine - chunks of the article of August 1955 seem to have been lifted verbatim from MacDermot. There are letters to the editor in the October and November 1955 issues, raising points on the B&CDR article. I've also been in discussion with User:Bruern Crossing at Talk:Chipping Norton railway station#Original company. In that, I state that I want to check Adrian Vaughan's work on Samuel Morton Peto. I now have that (on loan from Abingdon Public Library); and am reading it carefully. The index doesn't mention Chipping Norton at all, but I have found it once in the text. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:20, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also discussion at User talk:Lamberhurst#Kingham railway station --Redrose64 (talk) 12:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Drawn a blank I'm afraid. Vaughan mentions the Chipping Norton branch only in passing, not even in the chapter on the OW&WR but that on the Crimean War dealing with sales by Peto to the British Government "there were 100 wagons from the Victoria Docks [London] and the Chipping Norton branch, both just completed" Vaughan, Adrian (2009). "Chapter 10 The Crimean War". Samuel Morton Peto. Hersham: Ian Allan. p. 137. ISBN 978-0-7110-3378-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Re The Railway Magazine. If you are to use the August 1955 issue you will also need October 1955, which has three letters on the topic (pp.724-725); those from C.R. Clinker and Cyril A. Selman offer corrections and clarification. November 1955 has a further letter (pp.798-799) dealing with the South Wales-Newcastle through service. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Text search

Any idea how I might search for text which is not in the plain text of an article? I want to look for ("Lawrence" AND "Waters") within the parameters of templates, themselves placed within articles. If I got it wrong on Morris Cowley railway station (which I did, having again grabbed the book off the shelf, sorry for inconveniencing you), chances are I've pulled the same trick elsewhere, because I copy pre-filled templates from my user page. --User:Redrose64 (talk) 23:17, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My technological knowledge is limited, but in response to your query I've searched as best I know how. I searched Wikipedia for "Waters, Laurence" and got 415 references, several of which are articles with correctly-spelt references to Mr. Waters' books. Then I searched Wikipedia for "Waters, Lawrence" and got 1,971 references. I haven't waded through them all, but at a glance I didn't see any that were references to Mr. Waters' books, incorrectly spelt or otherwise. I also asked Google for "Waters, Lawrence" and "Wikipedia". This produced only one reference on Wikipedia: a "Lawrence Leslie Waters" who wrote a book published in 1950 about the Santa Fé: see "References" section of 1811 in rail transport. That publication was nearly 60 years ago, so unless Laurence Waters has had a very long writing career I suspect the L.L. Waters of 1950 is a different author.

It looks to me as if Wikipedia has no incorrectly spelt citations of Laurence Waters. Even if it had, it should cause no problem. As long as the other details of a publication are cited correctly, particularly the ISBN, no-one is going to have trouble finding it. I suggest such a (hypothetical) typo can safely be left to a reader who happens upon it, happens to know the correct spelling and chooses to put it right there and then. In the meantime I would concentrate on enjoying (1) adding well-referenced facts to Wikipedia and (2) the fact that being imperfect is part of being human! Best wishes, Motacilla (talk) 21:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Turntable at Kingham

I don't disagree with you putting metric conversion into Kingham railway station, since that's MOS:CONVERSIONS, although personally I find that it interrupts the flow of text (POV, see below). However, I don't think that the converted dimensions read too well. Consider "a 22 feet (6.7 m) turntable" and "a 44 feet 9 inches (13.6 m) turntable", where "feet" instead of "foot" when used as adjective is incorrect. Have a look at what I've done in my sandbox; if you're OK with that, I'll put it into the article.

(POV) For a while it looked as if an EU ruling would be imposed on the UK to require that all imperial measures quoted in new publications must be followed by metric equivalent; but that got thrown out in 2007 or 2008. There are books such as the "Locomotives in Detail" series from Ian Allan, where they have tried to follow the proposed ruling - every single dimension is given in both systems, such as

the locomotives had two outside cylinders 18+1⁄2" (470 mm) bore by 28" (711 mm) stroke, and driving wheels of 6'0" (1.83 m) diameter

which breaks the flow of text, and gets annoying after a page or two. It's OK to do this in tables, where you just pick out the column that you want. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake! I hadn't learnt that converter templates can be refined in this way; thankyou for fixing these two. The final version in your sandbox definitely looks better: please go ahead!

On POV I take my lead not from UK law but from Wikipedia being a global project. Metric prevails in much of the World, including significant parts of the English-speaking World (Australia for example). Your point about readability is most important in the case of a book, where a conversion table in an appendix might be better than citing a conversion for every measurement. However, Wikipedia is a series of reference articles, so I hope that in this case dual measurements are more of a help than a hindrance.

In articles about British matters I now always give the Imperial measurement first and the metric equivalent afterwards in brackets. In articles about subjects in countries that use metric, I assume it would be more appropriate to do the reverse.

If only Wikipedia's MOS had been around in the 1970's! Hugh Compton's book The Oxford Canal (Ian Allan, 1976) gives all historic references to money only in decimal. The awkward conversion from £sd is such that in many cases it seems impossible to work out exactly what the original numbers of pence were. For me it strikes an anachronistic, jarring note in what in all other respects is the standard work on the history of the Oxford Canal Navigation Company. Motacilla (talk) 22:40, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Money! The root of all evil. Conversions are far worse because of inflation. A certain railway in the 1850s cost an average of £1234 5s 6d per mile to build. Many books follow that by (£1234.28). I expect there are some that will show this as £766.94 per km (I hope they don't start quoting Euros/km). Trying to factor in inflation puts the book out of date inside a year; but some try.

Rock and a hard place. Factored prices are misleading, but unfactored prices as above sound awfully cheap! I think I'll build a railway from Didcot to Newbury - at that price I won't even have to float a company, do it all on savings and loans - remortgage the house, get it all back in ticket sales inside a year. What are FGW charging now? £19.90 Didcot-Padd, so say 36 pence a mile. That's about 3500 passengers to break even.

Anyway. Is there precedent, if not MOS, for converting on first usage and not on others? We could say, for example, "... the first 5 miles (8 km) took 15 months to complete, but the second 5 miles were built in half the time; meanwhile, the third stretch of 12 miles (19 km) experienced great difficulty ..." - do you see? "5 miles" comes up twice, but I convert only on first usage. I convert again on first usage of "12 miles". Would that be OK? --Redrose64 (talk) 11:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cropredy

Hello, Wagtail. I see that you've altered two section headers in Cropredy; I chose those when making this edit - I wanted to lose the heading "Bibliography", because you get those on articles about authors, so I carefully examined Wikipedia:Citing sources, particularly the sections #How to present citations and #Shortened footnotes. Can't remember why I went for "Notes" as opposed to "Footnotes", but "References" was a deliberate choice, per WP:CITESHORT; and I didn't want "Sources", per Wikipedia:Layout#Notes and References. I think I also checked some recent Featured articles to make sure that they did the same, but cannot remember which they were! --Redrose64 (talk) 22:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In changing from "Bibliography" to "Sources" I was following a pattern that another editor (I can't remember who) has applied to a number of articles that I'd written or expanded. I've been using "References" for the inline citations simply because the template is "reflist". If I've messed anything up please by all means revert it.

Wikipedia seems to include several different practices in naming and ordering such sections. If one of these different customs has been adopted as best practice I'd be pleased to follow it. However, I've now written 74 new articles and edited hundreds more, so harmonising all of them to such a standard sounds like a job for a bot! Motacilla (talk) 22:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "best practice" is a relative term, I've tried to take my inspiration from what I've read at the Wikipedia/Help pages I've shown earlier.

Now, following on from that, Horley, which I see you've recently tackled. Clicking a square-bracket ref number, such as the ^[3] which I added for Becket's ring patterns, takes you to the "References" section, fine; however, in there the text "Walker, 1975" is in black, so the user must manually check the "Sources" section. It's possible to link the reference to the source, and there are at least two ways of doing this; the ones that I've used successfully are:

add a |ref=Walker1975 field to the {{cite book}} template, and then internally link within <ref></ref> thus: <ref>[[#Walker1975|Walker, 1975]], p.29</ref>
~~leave {{cite book}} alone~~ add a |ref=harv field to the {{cite book}} template, and instead of <ref></ref> use the {{sfn}} template thus: {{sfn|Walker|1975|p=29}}

Now, the ref text is in blue, so you can click that to go straight to the {{cite book}} row. In Firefox 3 this gets a pale blue background; unfortunately in IE7 it doesn't. You still get taken there though.

For a live example of (1), see Abingdon Road Halt railway station; for a live example of (2), see Hinksey Halt railway station. These two examples are carefully selected because the articles are very similar, but each is consistent within itself in using one or the other method for creating internal links. Both techniques also work for {{cite journal}} and {{cite web}} - but not {{cite map}}, for which there is a workaround.

Finally: if using such techniques, it's best if the {{cite book}} templates omit the |page= field, because these are shown in the ref. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've amended case (2) above, because they've been fooling about with {{cite book}}. "harv" is a magic word. You will see that Hinksey Halt railway station is still a valid example.

--Redrose64 (talk) 09:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]